


Fallen From Grace

by NotFlyingWithOtters



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 8x23, M/M, Spoilers, human!Cas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-22
Updated: 2013-05-22
Packaged: 2017-12-12 14:16:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/812508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotFlyingWithOtters/pseuds/NotFlyingWithOtters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The stars were falling, long beams of light that cut the sky and burned into the already fallen’s retinas. Castiel looked up at the stars that weren’t stars, looked as his brothers and sisters fell and crashed to the earth, their wings burning as they dropped, their grace gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fallen From Grace

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this post on Tumblr: http://seraphlimonade.tumblr.com/post/50564479876/usually-i-draw-cute-fluffy-things-and-then-i

The stars were falling, long beams of light that cut the sky and burned into the already fallen’s retinas. Castiel looked up at the stars that weren’t stars, looked as his brothers and sisters fell and crashed to the earth, their wings burning as they dropped, their grace gone. The soft ground was a cushion for his wounded soul, his bones ached as he sat up, gazing up at the darkening sky lit with the lights of thousands of fallen angels. Beneath his feet the carpet of pine needles and soft earth muffled his footsteps, the slight groaning of broken twigs beneath his treads as he stepped forwards.

Ears straining, he heard the thuds as his brethren crashed to the earth, the screaming as they plunged from their home, ripped and torn from all they ever knew. Castiel turned his eyes to the heavens, though he seemed that it was wrong now, that the heavens no longer existed. Something he didn’t understand tugged deep in his heart, something he’d only felt when he’d seen Dean collapsed at his feet as he fought for control. Behind him, another of his number crashed to the ground, a whimper falling from their lips – rendering the voice indistinguishable from the screaming inside his head as the others fell.

In front of him the forest stretched on, the sky falling and crashing against him. He closed his eyes briefly, the wind ruffling his hair and lifting it from his face, the very tips of his hair brushing his forehead. A strange scent flowed past him and he closed his eyes, head tipped back as the faintest tinge of burning hung around him, making his insides recoil in terror. Silently, he took more steps forwards and then his eyes snapped open to the sound of his name from afar.

“Cas!” He recognised that voice, he knew it. Dean. He turned a little, tearing his gaze from the heart wrenching sight of his family falling from grace, slamming into the earth and laying there like the apes that they had sworn to protect. More and more fell, not in silence like rain on a Sunday afternoon when the world is still and peaceful, nor in screaming explosions that rock the very horizon and make everything roar for a while; no they fell, wings burning off as their grace flew from them and their bodies slammed into the hard ground. It was not peaceful, and nor was it violent. It simply was.

Perhaps that was the worst part. The fact that it simply was occurring, there was no fight in the angels as they fell save for a scream that briefly cut through the stillness of the night, and the soft collision of their bodies with the dank earth below. Castiel stood amidst the carnage of the fallen, his world wavering at the edges at the denizens of heaven laying cold on the ground despite the fire that had consumed them as they fell. His eyes swept over the scene, the once still wood and sky now filled with the soft sobs of the wounded, the groans of the lost.

“Cas!” Dean’s voice again, closer this time. Castiel turned his body, he couldn’t escape what he was seeing as it was all around, but the ability to focus on one point made it easier to pretend that this wasn’t real. His eyes fluttered closed for a moment and a paroxysm of terror gripped him as he realised that where there used to be a comforting weight on his back where his wings were, there was now nothing. The lightness made him feel queerly nauseous, a true sign that his grace was gone – and with it all that had separated him from the Winchester’s.

“Dean.” His own voice, thick and heavy from the despair that was seeping through every pore of his being, echoed in the desperate cries of the fallen scattered around him. He straightened his shoulders, the movement sickening him deep down in his stomach at the lack of weight that had always been there, something to comfort himself in and to close around him when the world got too hard. His wings were gone; he couldn’t feel them any longer.

“Cas.” Dean’s voice, loud and by his ear. Disorientated, Castiel looked across at the hunter, his own body betraying how frightened he was, how broken he felt. It was only Dean with him, a glance over the shoulder of the elder Winchester showed him that Sam had slumped against a tree trunk, breath coming in harsh pants.

“Sam… What happened to Sam?” His voice, the hope having fled the second he’d felt the blade on his throat and Metatron’s fingers coaxing the grace that was his true self from the wound evident in his voice. A moment to think and then a sheepish sentence that fell from his lips almost too easily. “I can’t feel my wings, Dean.” His voice trembled and then split as something inside him broke; a dam that had held back his emotions for so long. Tears built in his eyes, pricking the lids before cascading down his cheeks and running to the edge of his chin.

“Cas.” A gruff voice, the edge of it tinged with sadness and something else that the fallen angel couldn’t place, something that comforted him. Almost too easily the hunter wrapped his arms around Castiel, folding the smaller form into his warm embrace. Silently, slowly, Castiel buried his face in the leather of Dean’s jacket, inhaled the scent of blood, fabric and gunpowder. Hands curled into the material at the back of the jacket, forming fists as Castiel tried to hold back the tears that kept falling.

“I can’t feel my wings.” He repeated, nose against Dean’s neck now, the warm skin a comfort to his chilled form. Dean’s hands tightened their grip on him, one hand on the back of his head and the other on his back, gentle motions caressing the spots they covered.

“We can fix this.” Dean’s voice was breaking now too, but the hunter had had more practise at holding himself together than the ex-angel ever had. “We can fix this Cas, I promise.” Castiel nodded without much weight behind it, simply content to bury his face against Dean’s warm neck and shoulders, tighten his grip and be held. It felt as though there was a gaping wound on his back where his wings should be, where the appendages had been forcibly ripped from him the second his grace, his being, had left his body.

“Dean.” Castiel trembled again and then stepped back, wiping his eyes with one hand and reluctantly letting go of Dean’s jacket. The sky still blazed as more and more angels fell, losing their entire essences in one movement, one mistake. Castiel felt the guilt swirl around him, a tangible being that seemed to whisper his failings to him and catch at the bottom of his trench coat as he tried to pick his way to the younger Winchester, where Dean was now heading. He stumbled a little, tripping over a tree root that his misted eyes hadn’t picked out on the dark forest floor – despite heaven’s light show glowing in the sky.

“It’s okay Sammy.” Castiel heard Dean say to the younger brother. He reached for his grace inside him to try and alleviate the suffering of him, only to be shocked into reality when it remained far away, as separate from him as the consciousness of another being now was. “It’s gonna be okay.” Sam nodded, his face pale in the light of the falling angels and the star strewn sky far above. “Just let it go.” Dean was crouched, back to Castiel, a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “We’re gonna fix this. Fix you. Hell, fix all of this.” Sam nodded lethargically before standing, swaying slightly. His tired eyes fixed on Castiel, and he tilted his head to Dean slightly. Castiel stared blankly at both of them.

“Sam I am… Sorry for this.” Castiel whispered, throat constricting at the suffering of the younger brother. “Even if I had my grace.” He winced a little then. “I could not fix you.” Shame caused a flush to rise over his face, and he dropped his gaze to the floor.

“It’s okay Cas.” Dean’s voice again, softer this time. “Let’s get you both back to the batcave, then we can do some digging. We can fix this.” Dean stowed the gun away and extended a hand to the fallen angel. Castiel looked him up and down once, and took it. The feel of warm fingers covering his own was a comfort in a way that his wings used to be. The wings may not be there now, but the realness of Dean’s hand sliding over his own and the tightening of it as they started to walk was enough. Castiel chanced one more glance up as his brethren fell, and a few more tears slipped down his cheeks.

Dean’s lips chased the paths of those tears away when they reached the Impala. His hands cupped Castiel’s face as he stared around at what he had done, and the tender kisses made him forget for a moment that he had ruined everything. That night, Dean’s fingers traced lines across the planes of his back, his lips traced where his wings should be and lavished attention on his very human body. That night, Castiel fell asleep to the sound of Dean whispering comforts into his neck.

It didn’t fix it. It didn’t make any of what he had done all right again, but it was a start; and a start was all they had.


End file.
